8/31/13

I received plans for the
Celestial Calendar from you in March and I have finally finished the project. I
know it has taken me a while to do but I made it my lunch time project at work
so was limited to spending a maximum of one hour per day for 5 days a week. But
at least it gave me something to do in my lunch breaks lol.

I've attached some
photos for you to show you my interpretation of your master piece. I hope you
like it.

Celestial Mechanical Calendar by Dave Lee

When I first saw a
picture of the calendar my thoughts went straight to Victorian engineering. Big
gears, crank wheels, levers etc. Well coming from England it's part
of our heritage. So my calendar hopefully reflects that. You'll also notice I
changed it from being a mechanical calendar and orrery to more of an
astrological calendar. Planets moving in retrograde motion did not interest me
so much (until I saw your calendar I didn't even know about retrograde motion lol).
So I omitted the planet gears and added leap year and Chinese zodiac year
wheels. I have made some other changes as I'm sure you will notice. I also made
some of my own labels and indicators to correspond with the Victorian look. I
added a little bit of Steam-punk too.

Celestial Mechanical Calendar by Dave Lee

Well it now sits in my
dining room at home in prime position on the wall. My good lady loves it,
especially the moon phase ball.

Celestial Mechanical Calendar by Dave Lee

All creative and
constructive criticism is welcome.

Take care and thank you
very much for a brilliant set of well designed plans, you are The Man.

Cheers,

Dave"

Aloha Dave, it was a real joy looking through the pictures of your
unique and beautiful CMCO. I always enjoy seeing the creativity that other
artists add to personalize their projects and make them their own.

I noticed right away the moon ball with a personality, the beautiful
lettering, the addition of a leap year wheel, and the Chinese Year calendar
wheel. Kudos to you and all are Very nice, but what I REALLY loved
seeing is how you pulled all those together and really Steampunked your
mechanism up! That is a genre of art that I love, and your CMCO perfectly captures the essence of Steampunk. Congratulation on
your artistry.

I absolutely love getting pictures like these that show
such excellent craftsmanship and innovative artistry.

Thank you for doing the Celestial Mechanical Calendar Orrery plans so
proud.

8/25/13

Andi writes: "Hi Clayton, just thought I would share my new
clock design as based on the gearing you described in your Practical Guide.

The pictures attached show the clock mounted
temporarily at work where I can fiddle with it. I have also put a video of it up
on my YouTube site http://youtu.be/YOxQzlSRbdE

As you can see I took the “eight day” theme
all the way with the design of the frame hence the name #8.

The amount of weight needed was at first quite
disconcerting so rather than use a doubling pulley system I have just used a
pulley which can be mounted anywhere on the wall, luckily for me my walls at
home are actually just high enough that I can mount it to allow the drop for an
eight day run time. I must admit all my previous clocks do tend to stay dormant
unless I am in the mood to wind them. The once a week wind is fabulous, this is
one clock that will be in permanent motion. Just need some space on a wall to
mount it! Will have to talk nicely to the wife to move some pictures lol.

The length of pendulum is 74in. I had
originally thought to use your 3 click wind mechanism but forgot this when I cut
the wind gear which has a “four spoke” design, so I had to design a 4 click
mechanism and also beefed it up for the weight it was to support. I used a
second rewind barrel geared 1:1 with the driven one but with half the diameter
so the drop of the counter weight could be straight down. The dial is my first
attempt at segmenting and I am very happy with the result, the numbers are 1/8
brass rod inserted end on which though took a while to do but looks very
pleasing, worth the effort. As the weight needed to drive was so much the actual
length of the weight tube restricted the running of the clock by almost a day!
So, cut this into 3 and mounted into wooden end supports. Using the pulley above
the clock helps to support the weight of the clock its self, a bonus. The shape
of the frame just shouted for a chime to be mounted on the right so I used a
short length of copper tube and using just a wooden hammer makes an understated
“ding” but works nicely and isn’t too loud.

The original design was to have used a
grasshopper escapement of my own but I had to revert back to the graham
escapement due to the fact the swing needed of the pendulum was just a bit too
much. I think this is due to the fact I tried to design the escapement to the
dimensions I had for the frame i.e. the centre of the escapement is close to the
escapement gear, with the tooth spacing I used it needed to be further away to
reduce the angle of pendulum swing needed. All good learning though and it also
got me to understand how the design of the graham escapement works. Perhaps on
my new clock I can get the grasshopper to work.

Cheers for the book, a great read and an
inspiration for my own workman like design ;)"

Andi.

Andi, that is SO Very Excellent!!! I love the creativity you show in
this brand new "Andi" design! I love the wood you used for the frame and
reading about how you overcame the little bumps in the path to creating this
beautiful clock.

Yes,
the grasshopper is not only one that usually has a huge swing to the pendulum,
but it also is an energy hog. The two grasshopper escape clock designs that I
offer have about double the required drive weight of the Graham's...so not a
good choice for an 8 day with high weight requirements already.

I
have a different kind of grasshopper escapement in my latest research clock.
The two grasshoppers that I now offer are "Push-Pull" mechanisms. This new one
is a Push-Push. It is designed after the very first grasshopper that Harrison
created. He later graduated to using the push pull exclusively.

I've
attached a short vid. You'll see not only the weird "parallelogram"
grasshopper, but also a balanced compound pendulum, Geneva wheel hour indicator
that's run off of the revolving minute wheel. It is also set up for a seconds
hand, but that's not on it right now. I had trouble keeping it running on the
weight I thought it should have, and it lost its seconds hand in all the
modifications. When in reality I had to admit that ALL grasshoppers are energy
hogs. I hung more weight on it and it's been performing excellently...which is
the long way around saying that you decision NOT to use a grasshopper in your
8-day was most assuredly a good one.

Thanks
for the wonderful pix, vid and story of your build. Well done(!), and
congratulations.

8/5/13

Clayton has finally released the Marble Strike Clock from the Masochist's Corner group of plans!

Marble Strike Clock by John Hilgenberg

Formerly, the Marble Strike was relegated to the spot on our website where only those with proven experience were given a key to be able to purchase plans. Plans in Masochist's Corner had no instructions or materials list--you were on your own--thus the requirement for previous experience. But by Clayton's admission, the Marble Strike was in Masochist's Corner NOT because of difficulty, but because he was too lazy to write instructions for it!

Marble Strike by John Hilgenberg

This week, Clayton mixed a little more regular cofee into his half-caf, and finally wrote instructions for it. The Marble Strike can now be safely unleashed onto the public!